LAZY INTERVIEW #17: BOTANY

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← #16: SAMUEL #18: PSAPP →

At the end of last week I wrote about a really nice album. It's called Lava Diviner (Truestory) and it's by Botany and it's kinda a concept album built on the loose story of a religious cult praying for a volcano to explode. Whilst the songs worked out of context, so to speak, they most certainly worked in their intended order and I recommend having a listen. The atmosphere alone is really filmic stuff, so prepare to drift off and imagine.

Anyway. It was a really nice listen and I had fun going on the journey. There should be more concept albums. The flow is something else. I'm talking like I've never heard a concept album. But all of that aside, Botany himself was kind enough to lend his time in answering the Y/N lazy interview: lazy by name, not by nature. Please sit yourself down with a cup of tea or coffee or whatever you fancy, have a nice read of these words and enjoy.

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
My name is Spencer Stephenson. I grew up in a small town in Texas called Weatherford, full of football-moms, chain restaurants, and conservative politics. I think the guitar player of White Denim is from here too. It's a place that anyone who wants to do or say anything moves out of as soon as possible. I make music as often as I can and schlep at a warehouse in Fort Worth, Texas. I would say I live there too, but I'm in a little bit of transient period. I don't live in LA or New York and I'm not from Detroit or Chicago. I have a life story that no one should pay attention to.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
I've been playing since I was 10 and making electronic and hip hop stuff since I was 15. I've always done it. It's a hermit-crab shell that I never outgrew.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
I would describe my sound as one that uses a hip-hop composition style to make anything that can possibly be made that way. I tend to gravitate towards themes like mysticism, wonder, fantasy, and the ancient world, anything that someone would call another person a nerd for liking.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
That's totally up to the listener. I try to create enough of a "world" within the music itself for the listener to be able to listen to it anywhere at any time, but there are some places that are better than others. I'd recommend night time, outside.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
Usually a piece of an old record that would loop into something really interesting or pleasing to listen to. Landing on good drum sounds always pushes a song into the next dimension for me, too. If I like something I'm working on and that feeling doesn't go away then I'll finish the track.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
I opened for Panda Bear in 2011 in Dallas and it was the first time I played a big room by myself, to 500-800 people. It was really exhilarating.
Other than that some of my favorite musical moments have come from improvised jams between me and my friend Bruce Blay who makes music under the name Melting Season. We used to do a lot of free-form, krautrock-infused noise jams a

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
Pharoah Sanders - "Greeting To Saud"
Four Tet - "Gong"
Ahnnu - "Mirror"

Who do you most admire in the music world?
Matthewdavid is doing some amazing shit with his label Leaving Records. They've partnered with Stones Throw for a few releases as well. Everything they put out sounds great and sounds so much more raw and alive than 99.9% of electronic music/hip-hop. When I first found out about them I felt a kinship immediately like "ah yeah someone gets it!" Some of the stuff on Leaving breathes so naturally you'd never know computers were involved. Perfect approach, and really relatable. To me anyway.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
Well I see the kind of music that I do fully breaching the visual side of things. I hope to see albums released with some kind of fully interactive visual component, maybe one that is viewed through virtual-reality hardware. I often listen to music in dark rooms with my eyes wide open, it would be nice to put something in front of them and round out the experience that way.

Music is a personal experience and you can cherry-pick record stores and the internet and create a library that reflects your tastes perfectly in a much more specific way than ever before. I think we're at a point where artists are reaching for their own sound and identity like never before because of how saturated the music world is, and that's only going to make for a more personal experience on the listener's end as well.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
I hope to just keep going and making music that I'm proud of. I'd like to work with more rappers and other vocalists, but not in a "featuring" way necessarily, not in a way that's sort of compartmentalized like "here's the beat, here's the singer." I'd like to work with vocalists who add to the music in a really integrated way instead of just floating over the top of it. That's not how I think about vocals. They're another instrument in the mix. I feel like too many vocalists give songs an ego and a face with what they do. I'd like to go the opposite route.

I'm working on an EP right now that should be out next year, I really like the material that's on that.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
Staying on top of everything else so I can keep making music.

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He comes across as wholly dedicated to not just the process of creating music but also to the intended purpose of music: listening. Which is a nice thing to hear. Enjoyment, as ever, seems to play a big part in whether music even gets made in the first place, and his idea for the future of music - a more pervasive visual element - is something that prolong, augment and even enhance the listening experience. I know that VJs exist but how often do you ever hear of a famous VJ? Matching movement, images, colour to sound (the video for Julien Mier's 'Super Tropic Tramp' is a perfect example) is probably as difficult as making sounds into a coherent, likeable flow in the first place.

Whilst he says "I have a life story that no one should pay attention to," I believe that a life story, anyone's life story actually, shapes the person they become. For a maker of music, especially one so entrenched in music from an early age, that life story is going to mark your sound somewhat. Growing up, he says, in the midst of a place "full of football-moms, chain restaurants, and conservative politics" might explain why his music is so escapist; it doesn't even lash out, it simply transports you from where you are to somewhere else.

I listened to Lava Diviner (Truestory) whilst I was walking around my own hometown early in the morning. It was still dark. Instead of the comfortable suburban housing and commuters walking to the train station, I focused on the music - I couldn't not. This is music that comes from a place where people feel they don't belong, and speaks to people in similar situations. For everyone else, his finely-crafted beats will attract you into the marginal soundscapes that live at the heart of Botany's music.

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← #16: SAMUEL #18: PSAPP →

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UIO LOI PYOBACHI

FIRST OF ALL: Apologies. I'm sorry to everyone who's emailed me with music so far. A lot of it I just haven't got round to listening to yet. But I know what it's like to sit and wait for replies to emails you've nicely sent out so over the course of the next few days I will be having an Email Marathon. Anyway, this artist, the USA-based Zoom Lens associate Uio Loi (pronounced "oo-ee-oh loy" - real name Kyle Yerhot or K. Yerhot; I prefer the latter) has recently created and released a collection of songs, an album basically I dunno why I referred to it as that, called Pyobachi. It arrives care of brand-spaking-new art collective MI AJIRA and it's a really nice listen.

What is it? Essentially it's a collation of short songs linked in their similar aesthetic. Mr Yerhot himself says that it "focuses on using general MIDI sound samples mixed with modern electronic music & field recordings to create a juxtaposition of old & new." He also describes it as "Beautiful & ugly," and whilst it could seem an unflattering sub-text to bestow on his own creation, it's more of a romantic feeling than anything else. I mean Romantic. Not romantic. I believe, in this respect, the song titles help as a guide. These are vignettes, short poems of sound that conjure images and feelings related to loose subject matter falling under the titles. Which can indeed be wide and encompassing umbrellas of reference.

For instance, you have an actual recording of what sounds like a group of students making their exodus at the end of a lecture in 'Lecture', coupled with soft synth chords and industrious marimba that provides a breezy atmosphere of light learning. Next song, 'Reminisce' provides a portal to the past in the form of ascending wormhole bleeps and mystical pan-pipe melodies, ending when the goal of reminiscing is reached: warm, homely synths that glow with nostalgia. Broken robot sounds grace the glitch of does-not-compute feelings in 'Goodbye Never Ever Ever' and 'Flight' captures a bustling airport with foreign languages spoken against excitable toytronic sounds.

Opener 'Apartment' has this intro that would fit perfectly as a soundtrack to arriving home after a night out; all the lights are off, there's this unnerving almost ghostly feeling in the air. But as your own living person inhabits the space - turning lights on, switching on the TV, maybe cooking chips (fries whatever) in the oven - your own emotions fill the space: here it's a comforting sound, waves of synth driven forward by kicks and MIDI pan pipes for a playful decoration, yet all of it still with that same unnerving sound, a solitary undertone.

Likewise, there's that illustration of space in 'Living Room'. Recordings of something shuffling around in the background underpin a cold wash of ambient synths against rapid-fire arpeggios of synth boops; someone's playing piano at the end. Is that shuffling or sniffling? Could be sniffling cause it carries on over into next song 'Weep', featuring glistening silver sounds that perfectly partner with the delicate connotations of the word "weep" (as opposed to "sob" or "cry"). It summons a used-to, ingrained sadness, more of a celebration of cathartic release than wallowing in negativity. Closer 'Once More', with its thin yet head-nodding beat and mechanical glitch sounds, give a sense of continuance, how a night will end in the inevitability of tomorrow or how a morning will end in the day's definitive fading.

I could've done this with every song but then I'd be ruining your own chance to think about what you see or feel when you hear these short clippings of emotion and memory. Download Pyobachi for whatever price you like over at MI AJIRA's Bandcamp and enjoy the musical poetry. Also the album art was by Uio Loi himself.

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BOTANY LAVA DIVINER (TRUESTORY)

Google "the death of the album" and you have like a zillion results (259 million on google dot com), the top one being a Wikipedia entry on the actual phrase itself. A lot of publications have based entire articles around this phrase, which you can see on the Wikipedia snippet described as a "perceived decline of a traditional album in the 21st century." The keyword here, however, is "perceived" - and of course, it is perceived. It is not fact. You don't need to read any article to refute it. Although single songs are more readily available and people aren't necessarily having to buy entire albums just for one song anymore (as my dad admitted he used to do), these single songs happen to come from actual albums. People are still making albums. It's not, or shouldn't be, a big debate. It simply shows the readiness and the willingness of people to jump on the naysaying bandwagon and commit themselves to pronouncing the supposed decline or, more melodramatically, "death" of something, almost like a celebratory lament: a virtual conjuring of vultures circling. Tell me if I'm wrong.

In a similar vein, I'd like to introduce the new album, Lava Diviner (Truestory) by Texan producer Botany. It was released this week and it is a concept album, charting an imaginary cult in their efforts to make a volcano erupt via their prayers. I've already written about a couple of songs from the album, 'Quatic' and 'Simple Creatures', and was curious to hear how they fit into the concept, because both tracks are strong by themselves. Let's see, shall we?

From the bubbling bleeps and drum chaos of at the intro of 'Comm', we're led into a soothing paradise of sounds: true glitters of metallic percussion and chanting, wordless vocals. An introduction to the ideas behind this album, a searching view of a distant, unknown, tropical land. Tribal drumming rises out of the sounds, fades out, until a raw hip hop beats comes in, leading us to the next track, 'Anchor'. True to its name, heavy, bursting kicks lie at the heart of the beat, cementing it as the rest of the sounds are free to float all around - a dream world of pretty, ambient sounds. Inhuman voices yelp out, as if you're passing by the glowing mouth of a cave in the sweat of ominous night air. We're taken slowly into that forboding maw, as a low shamanistic vocal chants at the beginning of 'Owa'.

White noise fills your ears to the bounce of the beat, swimming synth echoing more singularly than before, the howl of voices in a labyrinth of tunnels. Things start to heat up. A huge room opens up, signalled by the expansive fluttering of the sounds in 'Per Eon', a greeting of a song where unintelligible voices chatter in its intense, all-encompassing sound, slowly fading to nothing. It's here, in 'Simple Creatures', where things turn a little eerie, helped by the soaring vocals of RYAT, our brief guide who in otherworldly layerings of aching tones repeats the mantra "simple creatures". We find ourselves in the midst of a ceremony in 'Cant / Goosemother' regular stamps of beating drums give way to hoards of relentless clapping and looping bloops of some giant marimba. A chorus rises up and sways. By the end, we're left with a more peaceful beat, more delicate sounds that herald utopian visions underpinned by sub bass.

But the real truth lies in the raw boom-bap of the unnerving 'Quatic' - euphoric sunny guitar sweeps get left behind for the hard reality of molten lava and ever-maddening voices, twirling over distorted walkways of bass. Things get serious. 'Small Keys' explodes with a hard, aggressive beat, decorated with snare ornamentations, a frenzy of sparkling noises jostling for supremacy. We finally meet the 'Lava Diviner' - a short oasis of exalted, choral reverence. Then the lamenting guitars of 'Celeste' and breezy drums give way to a dubstep beat, the perfect rhythmic vehicle for the less-busy, darker sounds of this track. Whooping, chuckling shades of vox fly out at you. Things turn orchestral as strings take over hounded by white noise. By the end, it's nothing but a frightening concoction of noise and brief murmurings of a low, demonic voice: a glimpse of the dark heart at work.

Perhaps things have faded for now. Carefree, complex drum patterns characterise 'Sunna / Show Me', a track whose jazzy, lounge leanings feel like gusts of pure air compared to the suffocatingly intense feel of some of what has come before. The drums fade and a flute plays alongside a lo-fi piano, the thin air of dawn. One single menacing note of bass sounds and leads us into 'Birdlife'. It's a structured, 2/4 affair, rich waves of chords ushering in a sense of calm as vocal samples skip along. It builds to an overarching crescendo of farewell. But as you look back, mournful strings remind us of the journey we've taken, remembering strange destructive human desires, the sound of molten bubbling still in our heads. Whether this cult prays for it or not, the threat and the power of the volcano is always there: nature remains.

... A journey, that's for sure. That's what this album was. And it's all thanks to a skill at moulding a whole plethora of analogue noises into evocative, believable soundscapes. Well-crafted, often intricate beats keep the pace and augment the dynamics inherent in these sounds. Botany himself, real name Spencer Stephenson, calls the whole thing a "cathartic release" - perhaps, then, it reflects his own heart, his own passions. This album itself was an eruption waiting to happen.

It's out now on Western Vinyl (as vinyl) and you can also buy it from iTunes or Amazon.

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PLATY∏ FOR REAL

Wow so it's been a while since I talked about this man. I wrote about him around the end of last year. That's like, almost a whole year ago now. Imagine that. You don't actually have to imagine it cause it's happening RIGHT NOW. That's what's going on. Anyway, I'm very happy that Playπ (that's Platypi for those who don't know their π's from their φ's) has made some new music. Last time I wrote about this Brighton-based hip hop producer it was regarding his glitchy-as-it-is-swaggery song 'Lassitude'. A very nice song indeed.

This time around however, Platyπ (aka real-named person Alistair Hill) has uploaded something very different onto his SoundCloud page. Although the mainstay of his general repertoire - that is, the syncopated offbeats of hip hop - is still present, there seem to be a lot more elements at play here, something that gives the song a mature, accomplished feel. Perhaps it's just his use of samples that do it here. Everyone knows I love a well-placed sample or two, but that's beside the point. The point is that it sounds good and I like it a lot.

Utilising a sample that sounds like it could be from some cheesy 80s commercial - glittering pop bells and lush palm-tree evoking sounds, basically - the song leads into a sparse boom-bap-esque hip hop beat with thudding kicks and reverbing snare. Chopping and looping the sample creates the distinct feel of melodic white noise at some points, particularly for the part where the beat drops to make way for some lovely electric piano chord progressions that make their soft presence known for the rest of the song.

A softly distorted bass has been added, something that exudes a certain amount of funk, locking in with the kicks of the beat for maximum rhythmic effect. Speaking of effect, there's a great bit in the song (at 0:58 I think) where everything just cuts out for a beat, leaving a breathless space of nothing that allows the next beat to be pretty punch without adding in any build-up tricks. There are lots of different parts to this song - quite something considering it's only 2 minutes long. This brand of music could be easily aligned with vaporwave, perhaps just for its particular choice of sample use, but for me all it does is mark a change in sound for Platyπ; and not just any old change, but a seemingly natural change - something that, for any artist really, is a good thing.

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ARCHIVIST ARCHIVIST EP [STREAM & FREE DOWNLOAD]

It's not often you hear something like this. In fact, I'm not sure if I've heard this kind of sound exactly as it appears here before. It's certainly a very interesting listen. What is "it"? What is "this"? It is the debut self-titled EP from South London duo Archivist - known separately as Ed Begley (vocals, lyrics, piano, guitar, programming, synths, percussion) and Rory Simmons (guitar, programming, synths, trumpet). The multi-instrumentalism and programming know-how certainly make for a dynamic combination; this is a very accomplished piece of work. In just five songs, you - the eternal listener - are taken on a wild ride through variegated realms of rhythm and sound, all with an overarching theme of poignant and pretty dreaminess.

The introduction to Archivist's world comes in the form of 'Wonder Through'. Against sounds that summon the hustle-and-bustle of everyday city life, with the jittering tick of hi-hats and loops of blustery electric piano chords, a sense of calm - of wonder even - effuses from the standing-still-in-the-midst-of-madness vocals that sing of "streets paved with gold"; sweeps of guitar and glittery synth crash around as Ed Begley's powerful falsetto belts lungfuls of emotion. Indeed, that voice is something that makes this EP what it is. Undeniably and gloriously English, it's also an extremely well-polished voice that is certainly put through its paces throughout the EP.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the riff-heavy pumping rock of second track 'Whatever You Are' - cymbal-laden drums smash out the beat as the looping guitar riff accompanies Begley's mean drawl in the verse, clinking percussion dotting the spaces between the cold sounds. It's in the final third of the song where the vocals scream loud, holding long lung-bursting notes in rock-god fashion - not an actual human sound I've heard nor been more impressed with since I heard The Mars Volta's 'L'Via L'Viaquez' - just sayin'. It's good!

'We Can't Be Friends' features a weirdly unnerving sense of funk against near-menacing spears of thick synth, all to a hip hop beat underpinned with meaty double-bass. This one feels very English indeed - there's a touch of Kasabian (maybe even Gorillaz) in here, yet rinsed in a waterfall of decorative sounds. Closing track 'Chancer' has a similar feel to it. Beginning with industrial synth heaped with delay we're soon plunged into an electronic wonderland of progressive sound set to a constant minimal beat where Begley's voice reigns over it, richly layered in some parts but always reverbing mistily into the meld of noises. With a slightly different sound, 'Swim' is an ambient illumination of rippling liquid waves, busy with chords and percussion, and haunted by lamenting falsetto vocals. At about 2:42 the beat suddenly breaks into a rapid uptempo samba-style affair, percussion shaking like lines of dancers in the background, and a delayed, distorted trumpet begins a futuristic jazz solo as ascending guitar notes provide a delicately fluid ornamentation - a very fun change in dynamic.

If you're looking for something exciting and different, this is what you should be listening to. Though only their debut EP, it already sounds like Archivist have years of experience under their belts. Counting amongst their influences Radiohead and Aphex Twin, their sound is telling of a love of particularly British musical acts; this release not only celebrates this kind of intelligent and meticulous half-electronic-half-live affair, but steps into its midst as a co-conspirator and takes the scene even further forward.

The EP is out now as a free download on SoundCloud and a name-your-price download on Bandcamp.

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